This invention relates to monitoring and management systems for lighting networks, such as public electric lighting networks.
Electric lighting networks and comparable installations are characterised by very wide-ranging and branched electricity distribution providing energy to each individual lamp.
It is therefore very important to be able to monitor both the state of each individual lamp, and the state of the entire network, in order to be able to program maintenance and prevent local faults or abnormalities.
Management and monitoring systems of known type are arranged to locally collect the significant operating data of the lamp at each lighting point, and to feed them via a carrier wave system to a monitoring operations centre, where the measured data are analysed, as a result of which the interventions to be carried out are programmed.
However, data transmission by means of carrier waves requires the installation, in proximity to each lighting point, of signal filtering elements to filter disturbances to the signal transmitted to the central monitoring unit.
The installation of said filters increases the cost of the network and results in difficulties in filter setting, which must be very accurate to prevent distortion of the signal to be transmitted.
The object of the invention is to overcome the drawbacks of the known art within the framework of a simple and rational solution. The invention attains said object by virtue of a monitoring and management system comprising, installed in proximity to each lighting point of the network, a device provided with means for measuring the characteristic operating parameters of each lamp, a microprocessor for processing said parameters, and means for receiving and transmitting the measured parameters, said latter means being of radio wave type and being arranged to receive the data relative to the operating parameters of the lamps which follow that with which they are associated, and to transmit said data together with those measured for the lamp with which they are associated, to at least the device associated with the lamp which precedes that with which they are associated.
According to the invention said device can be powered using the electrical line powering the lamp, or using a self-contained power system. Said self-contained power system can comprise a solar panel (photovoltaic cell), positioned in such a manner as to intercept at least a portion of the luminous flux emitted by the lamp, so as to power both the microprocessor and said transmitter/receiver device. Alternatively said components can be powered by a usual storage battery, which is maintained charged by said photovoltaic cell. In this latter case it is obviously not necessary to position said voltaic cell such as to intercept at least a portion of the luminous flux emitted by the lamp, as the battery can be recharged during the day directly by sunlight.
Finally in an advantageous and simplified variant of the invention said means for measuring the parameters characteristic of the lamp operation are able to sense only the light-producing or extinguished state of the lamp and the degree of efficiency of its lighting body. According to this variant said means are the photovoltaic cell which powers the components of the device itself. In this manner the device can be easily and rapidly installed without having to intervene in any way on the electrical system powering the lamp.
Finally, in a further variant of the invention, with each lamp there is associated a usual position satellite receiver, for example of the type known as GPS (GLOBAL POSITION SYSTEM), which receives its coordinates from a satellite position transmitter and transmits them together with the other measured characteristics to an operational control centre. In this manner the operator, in the operational control centre, can display on a monitor the exact position of the lamp with reference to a map of the area in which the lighting network is installed.